Wait Until Dark
by FurLicker
Summary: A short fic, more like a series of one-shots. Pre-"Lost Histories" the thieves guild quest . Told from the point of view of a prison guard.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Oblivion and all references thereto in this fic are the property of Bethesda Softworks. Apologies to Terence Young for the title and to Shakespeare for the random reference. Also, I am fully aware that I have exploited the use of torches in this fic. I know that, in reality, they wouldn't have worked in the way I have described.

Rated T for language.

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Private Gaius Licinius Milo stared blearily at the plate full of slop in his hand, struggling against the urge to retch. Sliding it through the grating into the cell, he raked his bracer across the bars, seeing no reason that the Breton prisoner should continue to sleep if he himself was thus deprived. He regretted the action almost immediately and withdrew his hand to rub his aching temples.

It was the kind of job that drove one to drink and, as Milo was discovering, the subsequent hangovers drastically compounded the misery.

The hail of curses from within the cell which normally followed any form of antagonism did not fall and was, by its absence, conspicuous. Milo looked through the bars--even in the mad, hellish light cast by the torches, he could see that it was empty--and swore under his breath. This was the last thing he needed. More bloody paperwork.

"What the hell happened to the Breton in cell five?" he demanded, coming through the door which connected the dungeon proper to the ante-chamber-like room where the guards were stationed.

Corporal Clodius, sitting slouched at his desk, looked up. "What d'you mean, 'what happened to him'?" he asked irritably. Milo rolled his eyes, "He ain't there, that's what I mean. What happened?"

Clodius looked uncomfortable, but offered nothing more than a non-committal shrug.

"What?" pressed Milo, exasperated, "He'd been looking poorly the last few days. Did he die during the night?"

Shrug.

"We release him?"

Nothing.

"Well he didn't just walk through the bleedin' wall! Where's the report from the last watch? They must've mentioned something."

"The last watch had nothing to report," Clodius admitted grudgingly.

"So...you're telling me that we _lost_ a prisoner? Just--" he snapped his fingers, "Vanished into thin air? Shuffled off this mortal coil and forgot to leave a tip, did he? Not to mention a body."

When Clodius merely growled something incoherent, Milo leaned across the desk, "Well, aren't you goin' to report it?" he demanded.

"Nothin' to report," the corporal grunted.

"Oh yeah, nothin," Milo cleared his throat, puffed out his chest and continued, his voice a scathing drawl, "Can you explain to me, private, why cell 5 is empty when we have it here in our records as being currently occupied?" He deflated and his voice returned to normal, "Uh...well, not really, no sir. You see, it seems that street patrol brought in a ghost. That's right, sir, a ghost. Can't fault the lads, really, sir. He looked solid enough. But, the long and short of it is, sir, he's gone. Scarpered. Ghosts, eh? Unreliable buggers. Poppin' in then poppin' out again without a word. Never write, never send flowers..."

Clodius, well used by now to Milo's propensity for diatribes, ignored him. Out of patience and completely at a loss, Milo strode over to Clodius' desk and began rummaging through the drawers for loose sheets of parchment. It wasn't his job, but Milo wasn't about to get sent down for failing to report a missing prisoner. If Clodius wanted to get his back decorated for being a lazy sod, he was welcome to it. Milo, however, had already gotten more than his share of stripes and didn't particularly want more.

"The hell are you doing?" Clodius snapped, snatching the papers out of Milo's hands.

"What d'you think?"

"Forget it."

"What? You goin' to write it up yourself, then?"

"I said leave it. Don't need to write up no godsdamn report."

Milo was incredulous, "Don't need to write the......Gods! This is the legion we're talking about! I can't take a piss without putting my name to some bloody form." He made a grab for the papers.

Clodius lurched to his feet, glaring at Milo, "Look, it happens sometimes, a'right? Sometimes prisoners... they disappear. You don't ask questions. You don't write reports."

"Come off it, Clodius! What is this, some trick you spring on the new kids? Make'em sweat a little? As if this job ain't bad enough...Well, you got me. Alright? I fell for it. So just tell me where the damn Breton is, and I'll go an' fetch him back."

Clodius remained stubbornly silent. If anything, he looked frightened. With growing unease, Milo turned away and headed toward the door leading to the upper levels, "Fine," he conceded, "I'll talk to the sergeant."

"Not if you don't want to stand watch on watch for the next fortnight, you won't!"

Milo rounded on Clodius in disgust, "You're going to have to do better than that, Corporal."

"Not me."

"Who? Cato? One of the other sergeants?"

Clodius sat back down, and began ineffectually shuffling papers.

"The officers?"

Clodius continued to ignore him.

"How high up does this go?"

"High enough," the corporal growled.

This was becoming absurd. Cursing under his breath, Milo relented and resumed his post at the door. It wasn't worth tangling with the officers. Not when there were other ways of finding out.


	2. Chapter 2

"By all means, keep being stubborn," Milo drawled, leaning against the bars of the cell, "Your friend next door is getting fat off all the extra food. With any luck you'll starve, he'll eat himself to death and that'll be two more miserable gits that I don't have to look at every morning. Now..." he held up the plate of food, so that the Argonian prisoner could see it clearly, "How 'bout you answer my question?"

For three days, the Argonian had remained defiantly silent, and for three days he had not eaten. This was the fourth day.

"What," repeated Milo, stressing each word, "happened to the Breton in the cell across the hall?"

"_Maybe_ one of your friends took a fancy to him." the prisoner sneered, "Why don't you ask them?"

Milo rolled his eyes and leaned in as much as the bars would allow, "You see any gold inlays on this scrap metal I'm wearing? No, you don't. Cause I ain't an officer. I'm a private. Bottom of the godsdamn dungheap. So I know shit, 'cause as far as they're concerned, I am shit. The NCOs can't be bothered to pull their heads from their arses to give me the time of day, and the rest of the enlisted men...well, I'm new here, so they don't tell me much. So I'm not asking 'them', I'm asking you and you'd better start talking 'cause I'm starting to get bored with this and when I get bored, I tend to get creative. And trust me, lizard, you don't want me to get creative."

"You can't do this to me. I have rights," the Argonian spat.

"Rights?" Milo laughed. "Maybe back in Black Marsh you do, but you're in an imperial city, my friend. You're nothing but an overgrown talking lizard here, whatever the laws may say. A bona fide circus freak, from a whole race of circus freaks. Besides, do you think anyone else so much as batted an eye when that Breton disappeared? No. And I don't think it will be any different when you turn up dead in your cell. It's a win win for them. One less scumbag leeching off the taxpayers' money and one less thieving fetcher on the streets. You see where I'm going with this?"

The Argonian curled back his lips in a snarl, hissing something in his own tongue, the meaning of which Milo had no trouble understanding despite not knowing a word of Hist.

"Fine," Milo snapped, starting back down the corridor, "Have it your way." He was running out of patience almost as quickly as he was running out of options.

"Wait!"

A smirk twitched across Milo's face and he turned slowly, "Now _that_ is more like it." Swaggering up to the bars, he held up the plate again for the prisoner to see, "Tell me what I want to know, my scaly friend, and you can go back on rations."

"Do not do it!" heckled the prisoner, a Kajiit, in the adjacent cell.

Milo snorted, "He just wants the extra meals."

"It lies!" yowled the Kajiit, "It can't give the imperial what he wants. After what the imperials have done, it is just going to become another cog in their machine? What happened to bucking the system? What about 'down with the establish--"

"Another word out of your mouth, you sugar snorting alley cat," snarled Milo, "and that meal will be your last! Now," he forced his voice back into a calmer register and addressed the Argonian, "what was it you wanted to tell me?"

"The Pale Lady," the Argonian hissed, after a long moment's hesitation, "In the night watches she comes. Three times she comes for you. No one ever comes back after the third time."

"What do you mean 'no one comes back'? Where does she take them? And who is this 'Pale Lady'?" demanded Milo, but the prisoner had fallen silent again. The shadows at the end of the corridor lurched wildly as one of the torches nearby guttered and died. Milo shivered. Next time he was near the store rooms, he would have to remember to draw some from the supplies.

"Look, just tell me who she is and--"

"You'll have to ask your soldier friends," the Argonian spat venomously, "They know better than--"

"Gods! Would you give it a rest?" exclaimed Milo, his last shred of patience gone."Here," he slid the place of food unceremoniously through the bars and turned back down the corridor, "Hope you bloody choke on it."


	3. Chapter 3

When Milo told Clodius the captain's orders, Clodius had given him a strange look, but said nothing. The captain's orders were this: that Milo should stand his watch inside the dungeon as a deterrent to the alleged intruder. This was in no way meant to suggest that the captain or anyone else put any stock in Milo's story. The captain, by his own admission, thought that Milo was full of shit. However, Milo had spread word of the prisoner's disappearance among too many people for the captain to let himself be seen to do nothing.

And so Milo stood his watch. Under normal circumstances it was painfully boring, but at least with Clodius there he had someone he could grouse at (and on very rare occasions, with). Now he was deprived of even that. There were the inmates of course, but they had quickly realized that he was stuck in there with them and what began as Milo harassing the prisoners ended with the prisoners harassing Milo. So he learned to leave them alone.

The shadows gave a violent shiver as a torch along the corridor went out and Milo swore. He had meant to replace them. Might as well do it now, he thought. The prisoners weren't going anywhere and if this so called 'Pale Lady' showed up while he was gone, well, she'd be back again (assuming there was any truth at all to the Argonian's tale).

Milo rapped sharply on the door, "Open up, Clodius." When, after some minutes, there was no response, Milo knocked again, harder, "Clodius! Get off your laze arse and open the door! I know you're sitting at that desk. Just open up, will you? Come on, just get up out of that chair and walk over to the door. You do remember what walking is, Clodius? One foot in front of the other. Doesn't take an arch mage. Look, all I need are some torches. I'm not trying to get out of this. You won't even know I'm gone, I swear. I don't even have to _leave_, you can grab them or send someone else to get them. Would you just---Clodius?"

A reedy chuckle issued from the cell nearest him, "It's no use," the prisoner, an old imperial, wheezed, "They've done for you, lad, good and proper, yes they have." He sounded almost gleeful.

"Shut your face!" Milo snarled. Another torch flickered out and, with a sudden surge of desperation, Milo remounted his assault on the door, pounding, kicking, throwing his shoulder against it, shouting curses, threats, pleas until he was hoarse and utterly spent.

"It shouldn't have done that," he recognized the Kajiit's smug voice, "It will need all it's strength for when she comes."

"Doesn't really matter," remarked the old man, conversationally; they might have been discussing the weather, "She takes them all in the end. Stronger ones than him. Better fighters too, I'll warrant."

"Both of you, shut up!"

"Ah, but it forgets: none of them were armed. She will have to work hard for her prey tonight, no?"

"Perhaps not. The light is going fast. And, you know, I hear they can see in the dark."

"I said, shut up!" Milo's voice cracked high on the last word and he heard the old man laugh again. He dug his fingers into his scalp and leaned against the door. It didn't make any sense. This kind of thing just didn't happen. Not over a missing prisoner. There had to some explanation. Maybe Clodius had been called away... Milo told himself over and over, as though repeating it would make it true. Every so often, he would knock on the door and call for Clodius. Maybe _this_ time he would hear. Maybe _this_ time the door would open.

***

There was one torch left burning. Milo was not sure how long he had been there, only that at some point, bewilderment and desperation had been replaced by a grim sort of certainty. He'd never seen any proper action, certainly not a full battle, though he'd often wondered what it was like, not just the fighting but the waiting before hand, knowing that soon one would face death. He wondered now if it felt anything like this.

The small circle of light surrounding Milo seemed to grow brighter for a brief moment. It flared, wavered and died, plunging him into darkness so complete that for several horrid minutes he had to struggle simply to breathe as panic clamped around him like the jaws of some umbrageous beast.

The familiar feel of his sword hilt in his white knuckled grip steadied him marginally, enough to realize that he was crouched, cowering in the corner of the door. The subsequent sting of shame, while in no way reassuring, cleared the oil slick of fear from his mind and, breathing normally once more, he got slowly to his feet. If he were really going to die that night, he would at least die standing.

It was ironic, seeing as he had never put much stock in the sentiment that it was better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees. He had, on more than one occasion, openly derided it. However, as it seemed that, either way, his life was now forfeit, then his pride was all that he had left and he preferred to meet his end with that intact, not huddled in a corner like a frightened child. And, as he waited, standing in the darkness, his hand flexing nervously around the hilt of his sword, there came the bone dry rasp of stone on stone.


	4. EPILOGUE

Private Gaius Licinius Milo had deserted. At least that is what the official report said. And there _was_ an official report. It may have been possible to overlook a missing prisoner, but the Legion tended to get antsy when garrisons began misplacing enlisted men.

According to the report, Milo had left his post halfway through his watch under the guise of escorting a prisoner to the infirmary. This was supported by the testimony of Milo's corporal, Marcus Clodius who had also been on duty at the time. Neither Private Milo nor the Breton prisoner in his charge ever arrived at the infirmary and it was discovered, after further investigation, that no orders for such a transfer had ever been issued. Notice was spread to the surrounding towns and outposts, with descriptions of Private Milo as well as his Breton accomplice; however no trace of either man was ever found.

No one questioned the report. To any officer or NCO under whom Milo had served the news came as no surprise. There was a reason Milo was still a private; it was the same reason that he had been transferred to the dungeons. His record was little more than a catalogue of demerits. Desertion, one could see, if one viewed all the facts of the matter, had only been a matter of time.

Certainly, a few minor details may have been omitted for the sake of concision. After all, a partiality on the part of the perpetrator for spreading wild rumours can hardly be considered relevant to such an investigation. Can it?


End file.
